FEMINISTS ARE A DIVERSE GROUP

The emerging diversity within the feminist movement seems to me
important for the mental health of our entire society. The
thoughts and ideas now voiced by some spokeswomen seem much more
valid to me (and to others) than what has been expressed in the
past. Past feminist bashing of and nonstop anger at men has
alienated most men and many women from those who have been
voicing such angry ideas. Alienation does not lead to change; it
leads to a backlash. A woman's ability to find a happier
spiritual system (see Chapter 11) will provide her with much
more happiness, self-esteem and contentment than will the
conventional fight response advocated by many feminists. Such a
fight response often leads to anger without end. Is that happy
or healthy? Do you want that for yourself?

I think that Gloria Steinem in her Revolution From Within
really hit the bull's-eye when she discussed the fact that men
also suffer from lack of self-esteem. Low self-esteem is
virtually a universal problem in this culture (in our problem
areas, we all feel low self-esteem). It is a lack of self-esteem
that propels a man to attempt to put down a woman or to be
threatened by her as a boss. Men who feel good about themselves
(i.e., have self-esteem) have no need to put down anyone. It is
the perception of many women that men do have self-esteem.
Instead, fragile bravado often accurately describes the actual
situation, particularly in their relationships with women.

A few of the more controversial feminists in the early 1990s
have voiced strong opinions concerning verbal harassment. They
have said that there is no such thing as verbal harassment -
that whatever words are voiced, we each have a choice to be the
"victim" of such words or not. (For more, please see Chapter 8
under the heading, Sticks and Stones.) Such is a most
politically-incorrect view. During the Hill-Thomas hearings, a
female Member of Congress voiced the politically-correct view
when she criticized a man for wanting the details of what had
been said before he would accept a charge of harassment. The
legislator's response was that if it felt like harassment, it
was harassment. This criterion is popular with some, but seems
to completely discount people's abilities to be in charge of
their own emotional responses.

While there has been a skewed backlash against the women's
movement, there has been a legitimate backlash as well, because
of (1)bashing rhetoric, (2)inherent male-female differences and
(3)feminist excesses. The rhetoric that blames only men and
excuses women for the difficulties of women overlooks or totally
excuses the roles our mothers (and other female figures such as
teachers) played in our development. Such rhetoric often
consigns its believers to perpetual trauma knots concerning
their mothers. By the same logic that some feminists use to
excuse their mothers from all blame, they could as easily use to
excuse their fathers. (Didn't their fathers just learn what was
taught them? How could a boy of three know that he was being
messed up by the widespread training in chauvinism?) Of course,
if all current blame were dropped, the feelings of the child
within would remain. Those upsetting inner-child feelings are
precisely what are being avoided by focusing solely on
current-day blame of males.

I am not an Athenian or a Greek, but a citizen of the world... Socrates c. 400 B.C.

The skewed backlash against women is composed of people with an
inability to change significantly. When they reach their limits
of change, they rebound (or backlash). The essence of the
problem with men in this category is typically their problem
with grief. They are unable to shed tears and therefore are
unable to release their trauma knots. And they do have trauma
knots such as "be strong, be a man, be strong for Mommy/ Daddy,
big boys don't cry, women are weak to cry, physical strength is
everything, size is related to the importance of the person." To
permanently release many of these trauma knots, grief is needed
(see Chapters 9 & 10). I believe that if the women's movement
were to be forever vigilant and active trying to promote male
tears, the neurotic backlash by men would dissipate. Similarly,
the neurotic backlash by women seems to reflect inabilities in
the area of anger and hatred (see Chapter 9), which contribute
mightily to low self-esteem.

While the work of feminism is not complete, it is possible NOW
to celebrate what has been accomplished.

FEMININE? MASCULINE? We might all be happier if the words feminine and masculine were banned. Few, if any of us, fit all the traits evidenced by
the majority of our own sex. (Many women are aggressive and
active. Many men hang out in the "non-masculine" side of the
brain. Most of us have non-traditional activities/ times in our
lives.) We all have abilities for intuition, logic,
vulnerability, feeling, assertiveness, softness, harshness,
competition and nurturing. To label any of these traits as
masculine or feminine just causes unhappiness in our society.